The GCM staff is covering all the action at the 2025 GCSAA Conference and Trade Show as it unfolds. Check back often for the latest industry news, company announcements, highlights from the Education Conference, and more.
Tom Huesgen, CGCS, superintendent at Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., co-led an interactive facility tour on the course's 2022 renovation. Photo by Darrell J. Pehr
• In an event sponsored by PBI-Gordon, Cornell University’s Frank Rossi, Ph.D., and Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club superintendent Tom Huesgen, CGCS, led an interactive facility tour Tuesday of the renovation of the 220-acre golf club, with some work still in progress. Huesgen gave highlights of the renovation, which initially included tee tops, fairways, green surrounds, bunkering and associated turf to be replaced, covering about 50 acres and ultimately increasing to around 75 acres. The initial project was completed in 2022, but additional components still are being addressed.
Already, the project is reaping rewards with increased rounds and increased club membership. A key to keeping the project on track is communication, Huesgen said. “Communicating out front and explaining your way through to the people who need to hear that and understand that kind of opens the door for everything else. I’ll never say it becomes easy, but it certainly become easier, and then you get more buy-in.”
• Mike Gianopoulos, CGCS, has won the GCSAA National Championship presented by Toro. The first-time winner from Kent Country Club in Grand Rapids, Mich., edged out defending champion Seth Strickland by one with a 2-day 6-over 150 at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa. See more details and full results at GolfGenius.
Trent Manning (center), CTEM, equipment manager for Ansley Golf Club in Atlanta and Ansley Golf Club at Settindown Creek in Roswell, Ga., facilitated the Equipment Manager Round Table Power Hour at the GCM Conference and Trade Show in San Diego. Photo by Andrew Hartsock
• Here are a few words of wisdom from Trent Manning, CTEM, the equipment manager for two affiliated golf courses, Ansley Golf Club in Atlanta and Ansley Golf Club at Settindown Creek in Roswell, Ga.
“Just because you know not to put your hand in a running reel doesn’t mean everybody else does,” Manning, the 2022 winner of the Edwin Budding Award, said during the Equipment Manager Roundtable Power Hour on Monday at the San Diego Convention Center. “Hard to believe, but that’s the world we live in.”
Manning, an 11-year member of GCSAA, oversaw the well-attended session and encouraged attendees to get out of their comfort zones, breaking the session into a series of small-group discussions on topics such as equipment operator training, favorite tools and workplace culture.
One of the tastiest suggestions for creating positive workplace culture?
“Barbecue to improve your culture? I love it,” Manning said.